Revitalize your downloaded music and movies

Restore the details and vibrance your music and movies lost during compression. X-Fi technology intelligently enhances the highs and lows so you'll hear it all-crisp cymbal crashes, wailing guitar solos, screeching tires and booming explosions.

Surround sound from your stereo music and movies

Expand your stereo music and movies into surround sound. Voices are centered in front of you. Ambient sound appears all around you... just like a live performance. Listen on a pair of desktop speakers or a full 5.1 speaker system.

Hear headphone surround that sounds like multichannel speakers

Slip on your headphones and X-Fi technology moves the sound away from your ears and into the space around you. You'll be surrounded by multiple virtual speakers and feel like you're sitting with your favorite band or in the best seat in the movie theater. Games sound better too with positional audio that's so accurate you can locate enemies by sound.

Enjoy realistic sound effects in games

Experience realistic sound effects and 3D surround that make you feel like you're actually in the game. Over 400 existing games use Creative EAX® sound effects to provide better gaming sound.

And if you're using Windows Vista™, Creative ALchemy restores surround sound for the same great gaming experience.

BUYER BEWARE, SB1040 / 70SB104000000 - NOT AN X-FI CHISET CARD, DECEPTIVE MARKETINGMay 10, 2009
By InnerSquare
"InnerSquare"
Nice sound, optical in and out, cheap, BUT, as I later found out AFTER purchase, as I saw no disclaimer nor information indicating otherwise on any vendor sites nor the Creative Labs site, this is NOT a true X-FI chipset card, a cheap knock off branded as an X-FI.

It is my opinion this borders on deceptive marketing practices as an X-FI is an X-FI, and this is NOT an X-FI chipset card..

NOT AN X-FI CHIPSET CARD, BUYER BEWARE OF CREATIVE LABS

Creative Labs admitted to me this card is not an X-FI chipset card, and that it so-called "emulates" X-FI via software.

Yeah right, and if that is the case, a Ford Escort can "emulate" a LTD Crown Vic also...

SHAME ON YOU CREATIVE LABS.

My last purchae was an Audigy 2ZS Platinum Pro which was not cheap, and I fully expected more only to be VERY disappointed that I got a cheap knockoff of an X-FI card that was misrepresented.

Does anyone else feel as if they have been misrepresented by this card not having an X-FI chipset on it while being marketed/represented as an X-FI product line offering?

30 of 35 found the following review helpful:

Not what I had hoped forMay 27, 2008
By D. PhamI ordered this sound card for its digital output toslink and claimed compatibility with windows vista. However, this card did not live up to my expectations at all. I had wanted to hook up the sound card to play through my audio receiver and 7.1 speaker setup in the living room. What they fail to tell you, except in the fine print, is that the digital SPDIF outputs only output Dolby 5.1 sound when you are playing DVDs. Otherwise, if you are playing MP3's or other music files, it only outputs in stereo (and poor quality stereo at that). I then tried to go analog and connect the various output jacks to my receiver's inputs. The sound quality was awful.So I sent the card back.

This is in stark contrast to the old Soundblaster Extigy which I purchased years ago. It was able to output surround sould (including CMSS) through the digital connection to my receiver and sounded great. The problem is that I had to upgrade to Vista and Creative abandoned the Extigy, deeming it "End of Life". I have since been unable to find a sound card which can provide its feature set for Vista.

Needless to say, I did not purchase another Soundblaster. I went with an alternative sound card with Dolby Digital Live output. It is still not as good as the Extigy because it doesn't provide CMSS, but it'll do for now.

21 of 24 found the following review helpful:

Terrific sound and excellent valueOct 11, 2009
By Timothy Bochard
"Software Engineer"
I purchased the PCI-e version of this card about a month ago when the built-in audio circuitry on my motherboard quit working. Sure wish I had done this sooner! Even though I had high-end sound on a top-of-the-line motherboard, the Soundblaster X-Fi Extreme Audio Card was better - by several orders of magnitude. It was easy to install and configure. It did take some time, after loading its software, to download updates from the Internet. But, that will happen with any card. Frankly, I was happy it did it automatically as I hate hunting for drivers. Anyway, it has some nice config software although you may find, as I did, that it works just fine out of the box. I run a relatively inexpensive set of computer speakers with combined subwoofer -- nothing fancy -- and the sound is amazing. Much better than before. I now use this PC as a Windows Media Center PC, watching and recording TV, movies, pictures -- you name it -- in the Family Room. This card really rounds out the experience. I paid around $50 for the card on Amazon. I consider it a great value. There's a reason why Creative Labs is still cranking out these boards even though motherboard manufacturers build audio in: the sound is BETTER! Upgrade from your motherboard card and hear the difference!

Cons: - Does not have a Mic only port, you have to have software that may not work to change another port to Mic. - Unable to increase sound for the Mic beyond its limitation - Software & drivers provided on CD did not support Windows 7, - Creative's web site did not have the most up to date drivers for Windows 7 (MICROSOFT DID) - Software for this card does not appear to have been updated in a very long time, other applications are just out of date - Took 9 hours to get this to work for Windows 7 - Poor sound quality, the on-board sound I had with my motherboard was better.

I bought this card thinking it'd be an improvement over the on-board Realtek sound on my motherboard... and I'ma bout to switch back to Realtek. I've spent 9 frustrating hours on this Sound Blaster X-Fi trying to get it to work . The CD it came with did not have drivers for Windows 7, and caused a lot of errors. All applications provided by the CD would inform me that "The device detected is not supported by this application." Ok I thought, go to Creative's website, get the updated software and updated driver, install all of it, and got the same results with the device detected is not supported by this application.

I spent hours combing through forums, trying to find a solution, and found other people were having this issue. I've found Creative Labs' forums to not be very user friendly, and their web site to not be very user friendly. Took me a long time to find the information needed to make this card work on Windows 7.

9 hours later, after multiple un-installs and re-installs of the drivers and software, I get a Windows Update notification saying they have an update for the driver... The driver posted on Creative's website was dated from 2010, the driver from Windows Update was dated from 2011... Could not find the updated driver from Microsoft of Creative's web site. Took a chance on Microsoft's suggestion as nothing else was working, and IT WORKED. Now for the part that angers me even more.

Sound quality sucks. There's dips in the sound as I'm playing a game, or watching a video. There's a staticy click when I'm clicking on objects in Windows, I'll hear the Windows' sound for the click, then a static click afterwards.

Other thoughts: In a world were Skype, online gaming, vlogging, and podcasts are popular... the requirement of software that may not work for you at all to turn the Line-in port into the Mic port was a poor decision on Creative's part. If anything, it should have been defaulted to Mic. I've built computers many times, and this has been the most frustrating add-on device I've ever dealt with... and it's from Creative... starting to think they're losing their edge. I'm pulling this card out and returning it.

7 of 7 found the following review helpful:

Disappointed in sound recording abilitySep 03, 2011
By LarryBoyI purchased this sound card primarily to record sound on my new HP desktop loaded with 64 bit Windows 7 professional. I was disappointed to find that the "what u hear" recording option that was available on my former windows XP system was not available with this card and OS combination. I even tried connecting the speaker output jack and the line-in jack on the card, but that resulted in nasty feedback and echo making it impossible to even record that way. Not sure if it is and OS or hardware issue, but it has me very frustrated at the moment.